by Harold Coyle
It wasn't until the captain had finished asking his questions that Jan realized who was the true target of the investigation. The shopkeeper, the two policemen, and a third who would be brought in later were of no interest to the Army captain. He did not want to bother with what he considered the crust of the problem. He wanted a target that was both worthy of his efforts and would serve as an example to more than a single shopkeeper. In due course, the lieutenant was arrested, presented with the evidence, and confessed his guilt.
The trial, held at the courthouse the next morning, with the captain serving as the judge, was quick. The shopkeeper involved, present as a witness, was fined and released. The police officers on the list, also present as witnesses, were demoted one step in grade, fined, and released.
The police lieutenant was duly found guilty of encouraging his subordinates to accept bribes, which he shared in, from shopkeepers who were overcharging their customers. He was sentenced to death by firing squad, to be carried out the following day before noon. Without further ado, the court was adjourned and the Army captain prepared to work on his next task.
Before she left, the Army captain asked Jan what she thought of the whole affair. Jan didn't quite know how to respond. She, like the accused, found that the speed of the whole affair had left her little time to organize her thoughts. Her first response, that she thought shooting the police lieutenant was rather severe and cruel, resulted in a perplexed look on the captain's face. "Senorita Fields, to have shot all the policemen and shopkeepers involved would have been cruel. Besides, we do not have enough bullets in all of Mexico to shoot everyone who, under the old regime, was corrupt. No, instead, we slapped the underlings and shot the biggest fish we could catch, the more influential and visible, the better.
Now all the shopkeepers and policemen in that precinct, and no doubt the neighboring precincts, know what can happen if they attempt to take advantage of their position. No, senorita, a simple and hard-hitting example of what can happen is best."
Where the investigation and trial had proceeded with a speed that was staggering, the events leading up to the execution of the sentence had been painfully ponderous. Taken from the courthouse, the police lieutenant was held overnight at a prison within the city. That night, with Jan and her crew watching, he was permitted a visit by his wife and children.
In a scene that brought tears even to Joe Bob's eyes, the police lieutenant's wife cried with abandon while his children clung to him, as if this could prevent him from being taken. For his part, the lieutenant stood in stunned silence, overwhelmed by the events of the past two days. Overwhelmed herself with sympathy for the poor wife, Jan chose not to wait for their departure. Instead, she cut the taping and left. The next day, she knew, would be difficult.
She was right. When Jan arrived the next morning, she found the police lieutenant awake. A breakfast served earlier sat next to his bed untouched. Though she suspected that the lieutenant had not slept, he seemed to be fully alert and at peace. In a short interview, he spoke freely, confessing his sins in the same manner that he would to a priest in an effort to absolve himself of his guilt, admitting that it had been wrong for him to encourage his subordinates to neglect their duties and accept bribes. To ignore shopkeepers and tradesmen who exploited the poor, he said, was evil and should be stopped. Alas, he lamented, he was but a weak mortal who, raised in a corrupt system, had done what everyone else was doing. When Jan asked if he thought that the sentence he had received was too harsh, he looked at her for a moment before answering.
"This is, senorita, a revolution, or more correctly, a continuation of that great revolution fought by our grandfathers that has made Mexico the great country that it is today. I am guilty of betraying that revolution and I am prepared to pay the price, like a man, for my sins against the people."
Though Jan suspected that the lieutenant had been coached before she had arrived, there was no denying that he meant what he said when he told her that he would face his death like a man. In the courtyard there were four groups of people. In the center stood a firing squad. Because the accused was a police officer, the firing squad was made up of ten policemen, all from different precincts. The officer in charge was also a policeman, a lieutenant, just like the accused. The significance of all this did not escape Joe Bob, who suspected that Colonel Guajardo had arranged it. The second group was a cluster of police officers of assorted ranks. They were there to witness the execution and learn. The third group was private citizens, including the old woman who had brought the original charges against the shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper himself, to watch justice dispensed. The final group was Jan and her crew. Though Ted preferred to shoot with the camera on his shoulder, he had it mounted on a tripod that morning. Though it would limit his ability to move around, he knew the extra support was necessary, since he didn't like guns and had a tendency to jump every time he heard one fired.
When all was set, the police lieutenant to be executed, accompanied by a priest, was led to a spot in front of a wall opposite the firing squad. Jan watched the preliminaries without comment as Joe Bob adjusted his equipment so that the tape would pick up every word. There was, after all, nothing to be said at this point. Everything was self-explanatory, readily evident.
As in any B movie, the priest said a final prayer, the officer in charge read the charges out loud, and the accused manfully refused a blindfold.
Only this wasn't a B movie. Jan kept telling herself that. This, she knew, was real. The man standing less than fifty feet from her was about to die and there was nothing that she could do to stop it. All she could do was watch, like everyone else in the courtyard. That was, after all, her job, to watch and report what she saw. She didn't make news, she didn't change it. She only watched events in the making. This, she repeated to herself, over and over, was just another event. No different than a tornado, or a fire, or any other story. It was just a story.
Still, as the officer in charge of the firing squad began to issue his orders, Jan felt light-headed. In response to the officer's crisp, clear, and exaggerated orders, the firing squad brought their rifles to bear and took aim. At the last moment, before the crack of the rifles announced that the sentence had been carried out, Jan turned away and hung her head. This was not just a story. And she knew it.
From a small room overlooking the courtyard, Colonel Guajardo watched the execution below. He observed Jan Fields intently as he listened to the commands. When she turned just before the command to fire was given, Guajardo smiled. Before the first trigger was pulled, Guajardo knew that the firing squad had hit its mark. Once again, through a happy combination of luck and subtle manipulation, he had managed to turn a potentially bad situation into a favorable result. Though he didn't know what she would say, Guajardo counted on Jan's story to do what the Council of 13 couldn't do on its own.
Looking up at the clear blue sky, he ignored the report of the rifles.
Without turning to his adjutant, he mused, "It is going to be a beautiful day today. Far too beautiful to spend in the city."
Understanding his colonel's meaning, the adjutant asked, "What shall it be, sir, flying or riding?"
"Riding, I think." Slapping his right hand on his chest, Guajardo looked over to his adjutant. With a smile on his face, he grabbed the adjutant's arm and began to guide him down the corridor. "Come,.we will make short work of the paper monsters that threaten to consume us and then we will each find a fine horse that demands to be ridden hard."
Webb County, Texas
1230 hours, 3 August
In his fifteen years as a member of the border patrol, Ken Tins worthy had never known a man who could get lost more than his best friend, Jay Stevenson, could. Stevenson, himself a veteran of fourteen years with the border patrol, never had mastered the fine art of map reading. For this reason, the duty roster was always arranged so that Stevenson was paired with someone who could read a map or who knew the area.
The current problems in Mexico, however,
had screwed up the duty roster, along with everything else for the men working out of the Laredo office. Though the news reports continued to tell of the popularity of the new Mexican government, the increased flow of Mexicans north, into the United States, told Tinsworthy and his fellow border patrolmen that not everyone in Mexico agreed with that assessment. The big difference with many of the Mexicans coming north was that they were coming from a better class of people than in the past. Former government officials, policemen, merchants, lawyers, and even an occasional priest made up the bulk of the new wave headed north. Increased movement of illegal immigrants north meant increased patrols, which, in turn, meant longer hours and the need to put new and partially trained men into the field as soon as possible. Everyone with over ten years service was paired off with a new man. In this way, the system of putting Stevenson with a proficient map reader got screwed up. Too proud to complain, Stevenson had gone out the night before with the new man, named Mikelsen, driving while Stevenson tried to find the easiest and most obvious route to their checkpoints.
When Tinsworthy and the rest of the day shift had been greeted at 7:30
that morning with the news that Stevenson and the new man had still not checked in, no one was surprised. Someone recommended that before anyone got excited, they check with the Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma highway patrols. They were even betting money on why Stevenson wasn't answering the radio. Half felt he was too embarrassed. The rest claimed that he was too far out of range. Still, when nothing was heard from Stevenson and his partner by nine o'clock in the morning, their supervisor had ordered all patrols to begin to converge on the area where Stevenson and Mikelsen should have been.
Tinsworthy was in the process of checking the high ground overlooking the Rio Grande when his partner spotted a light green and white Border Patrol four-by-four sitting on a knoll in the distance. Since they were the only ones in that area, they knew it had to be Stevenson's.
Turning off the trail, Tinsworthy headed straight for the stationary vehicle while the new man tried unsuccessfully to raise Stevenson on the radio.
At a distance of one hundred meters, Tinsworthy suddenly slowed down. The new man looked at Tinsworthy, then at Stevenson's vehicle, then at Tinsworthy again. Tinsworthy, both hands on the wheel, was staring intently at the other vehicle. The new man, not understanding why they had stopped, tried to figure out what Tinsworthy was staring at.
"What's the matter?"
"Somethin's not right here." Stopping his vehicle fifty meters short of the stationary four-by-four, Tinsworthy took his hands off the wheel, unsnapped the strap of his holster with his right hand. He opened the door with his left and began to get out, all the while watching the vehicle on the knoll. "You stay here and cover me."
The new man, spooked, looked back at the vehicle and the knoll, then to Tinsworthy. "Cover you? Cover you from what?"
Tinsworthy had no time to explain. How could you explain a feeling to a new man? How could you tell him that the cold chill down your back told you something was terribly wrong? Instead, he just repeated his instructions, never once taking his eyes off of the knoll. "You just do as I tell you. Cover me and be ready to call in for help." Without waiting for a response, Tinsworthy began to inch his way up the knoll.
Despite the heat, Tinsworthy felt as if a cold hand had been placed on his back. With his right hand on the butt of his pistol, he slowly moved forward. Though he continued to face the stationary vehicle on the knoll, his eyes scanned to the left and right, watching for movement. Halfway up the knoll, he noticed that there was someone in the driver's seat, his head bare and resting on the steering wheel as if he were asleep. Pausing, Tinsworthy took a long look at the vehicle's driver, then looked about, turning until he could see his own vehicle and partner behind him. The new man, standing behind the passenger door of their vehicle, had the window down and the shotgun resting on the door. Tightening his grasp on his own pistol, Tinsworthy continued to advance.
At a distance of ten meters, he stopped when he saw a jagged line of bullet holes in the door. Drawing his revolver, he closed on the vehicle, holding his pistol with both hands pointed up and over his right shoulder.
He heard the sound of the flies before he saw them buzzing about and landing on the head of the man in the driver's seat. When he reached the vehicle, he took a quick glance inside, then around the entire area. Seeing nothing that looked suspicious, Tinsworthy moved closer to examine the body draped over the steering wheel. It was Mikelsen. Tinsworthy reached into the cab, feeling Mikelsen's neck for a pulse with his left hand while still keeping his pistol at the ready. Though the stench of blood exposed to the summer heat for hours and of human waste released when the bowel muscles lost tension told Tinsworthy that Mikelsen was dead, he still felt for a pulse. As he did so, he wondered why there appeared to be no blood, though he could smell it. It wasn't until he finished trying to find a pulse and walked around to the passenger side that he saw it.
The passenger's door was open. Seeing that the radio was on, Tins worthy reached in to grab the hand mike. As he did so, he examined Mikelsen's body from that side. At his feet, down on the floor, Mikelsen's cowboy boots were awash in his own blood. The seals of the door and the hump where the transmission was had caught Mikelsen's blood as he had bled to death.
Drawing in a deep breath, Tinsworthy took the hand mike and called the base station, requesting backup and an ambulance. The dispatcher, taken aback by Tinsworthy's request, paused before putting their supervisor on. In a solemn voice, the supervisor asked what Tinsworthy had.
"Not good, boss. Mikelsen's dead. Looks like they were hit with automatic fire while they were sitting on a knoll watching the river. I haven't found Stevenson yet. The passenger door was open and there's no bloodstains on his side of their vehicle. I'm going to go find him."
"Negative, not until you get some backup. Stay with your partner. We have the chopper en route now."
"Can't do that, boss. Jay might need my help."
"Ken, I repeat, stay where you are. Do you hear me?"
Tinsworthy didn't answer. Dropping the hand mike on the seat, he turned and began to search for his friend. When he found him after what seemed like an eternity, he wished he had listened to his supervisor.
In a gully, down by the riverbank, Ken Tinsworthy found Jay Stevenson's body. The first thing he heard was the snarling of two wild dogs fighting. Drawn to the commotion, he saw the two dogs alternating between chewing on Jay's body and snarling at each other. Without thinking, Stevenson lowered his gun and fired twice, dropping one of the dogs, scaring off the second, and causing his partner, who had lost sight of him, to panic and report on the radio that they were under fire.
Moving down into the gully, Tinsworthy looked down at his friend's corpse. He didn't need to read the name plate to recognize that the body at his feet belonged to his best friend. The sight of Jay Stevenson, his feet and hands bound and his head blown off at point-blank range, was too much for Tinsworthy. Dropping to his knees, Ken Tinsworthy looked up at the clear blue sky and began to cry for his friend. As he cried, he first asked God why he had let such a terrible thing happen. Then he began swearing to revenge his friend's death, crying out loud through his tears,
"God help the fucking spick that killed Jay. God help him."
The instruments of battle are valuable only if one knows how to use them.
--Ardant du Picq
Fort Hood, Texas
,
0545 hours, 8 August
Watching Second Lieutenant Kozak as she conducted her final precombat inspection of the 2nd Squad, Sergeant First Class Rivera wondered what it was with infantry second lieutenants. Perhaps, he thought, Fort Benning makes them that way. It had to be. After being a platoon sergeant with the same platoon for twenty-six months, he was in the process of breaking in his third brand-new, fresh-from-Fort Benning platoon leader.
And each and every one came into the platoon full of piss and vinegar, ready to
set the world on fire, and hell-bent for leather to lead a bayonet charge.
Even his new lieutenant, a woman for Christ's sakes, was just as gung ho, and as intolerant of anyone who wasn't, as his first two lieutenants had been. It wasn't until they became captains, or so it seemed, that they discovered that just maybe sergeants weren't so dumb after all. Rivera wondered if his counterparts in the field artillery and tank corps had the same problems. Probably did, he thought. A lieutenant, after all, was a lieutenant, was a lieutenant, was a lieutenant. Maybe the first sergeant was right. He always told his platoon sergeants to save their breath when dealing with new officers. Instead, he told them, they should just take their new lieutenants out into the boonies and beat them senseless with a two-by-four for a half hour before starting their training. That was the only way, the first sergeant contended, that you could, A, get rid of some of the foolish stuff they filled their heads with at Benning, and, B, be reasonably sure you had their attention.
That day's operation was a prime example. The platoon's mission was to establish an outpost forward of the company's battle position. The task, as it was explained by the company commander, was rather simple.
One squad was to move forward where it could observe the main avenue of approach into the company's engagement zone. All Wittworth wanted was a few minutes warning so that he could coordinate the direct fires of the company with the indirect fires of the artillery.
Lieutenant Kozak, however, felt that it would be better if an antiarmor ambush was established in addition to the outpost. Rivera pointed out that the purpose of the outpost was to provide security and early warning to the company, nothing more. The lieutenant, however, believed that they could do that just as easily by establishing an ambush. An ambush, she pointed out, would begin the process of attrition and perhaps confuse the enemy as to where the company's main positions actually were. Rivera made an effort to point out that they stood just as good a chance of becoming confused as the enemy. It didn't take long, however, before he realized that he was fighting a losing battle. Watching her eyes and listening to her tone of voice as she explained her reasoning in great detail, Rivera decided that perhaps it was best to let the lieutenant have her way. Sometimes, he knew, it was better to leave lieutenants to discover the grim facts of life themselves. Perhaps she just might pull it off, though he doubted it. She was, after all, here to learn, and Rivera knew that sometimes the best lessons in life came from the biggest screwups.